International Roles

• Editor-in-Chief: Nursing History Review
• Chair: Adelaide Nutting Award Panel: American Association for the History of Nursing

University Roles

• FBMH/DA Academic lead for supervisor development
• Deputy Directorate lead: T&R NMSW

Jane Brooks, PhD, RN is a senior lecturer in the Division of Nursing, Midwifery and Social Work at the University of Manchester, and Director of Postgraduate Research for the School of Health Sciences. She qualified as a Registered Nurse in 1987 and is registered with the NMC as a lecturer of nursing. She was awarded her PhD in 2005 from the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine. She has published a number of articles and book chapters on nursing work in the Second World War. Her most recent book,  Jewish Refugees and the British Nursing Profession: A Gendered Opportunity was published by MUP in 2024. She is also the author of, Negotiating Nursing: British Army Sisters and Soldiers in the Second World War (MUP 2018.) She was the 2015 recipient, with Christine Hallett, of the America Association for the History of Nursing, Mary M. Roberts Award for the edited book, One Hundred Years of Wartime Nursing Practices. Her previous research studies included work on the early university programmes for nurses in the UK between 1918 and 1960 and she has a number of publications based on her oral history study of nurses who cared for older patients in the mid-twentieth century.

She was awarded the Monica Baly Bursary from the Royal College of Nursing in 2008 and 2014, the Barbara Brodie Fellowship from the Eleanor Crowder Bjoring Center for Historical Nursing Inquiry, University of Virginia in 2018 and the H15 Research grant from the American Association for the History of Nursing in 2021. 

• Jewish refugees and the British nursing profession, 1933-1948
• Nursing work and war
• Nursing in the Second World War
• History of caring for the elderly and infirm
• Nursing in Municipal Hospitals
• History of the Special probationer schemes (lady nurses)
• History of university education for nurses in the 20th century

I have a number of PhD students in both the history of nursing and also qualitative methods research

I teach the history of nursing to undergraduate nursing students and PGT

I am a trainer for the Centre for Academic and Researcher Development 

I am a mentor and assessor for Awards for the Higher Education Authority through the UoM LEAP programme

• Historical method (qualitative and quantitative historical research)
• Oral History

• PhD (Nursing)
• MA Healthcare Ethics
• PGDip (Nursing education)
• BA (Hons) Religious Studies
• Registered Nurse

2017 - 2018: Member of UREC 3

2017: Historical expert for Defence Nursing exhibition at RCN headquarters, London (March 2017)

2016: Historical expert for Public Health exhibition at RCN headquarters, London (October 2016)

2014:  Coordinated the School of Nursing, Midwifery and Social Work’s input International Women’s Day celebrations, in association with Athena Swan.  Nursing as a humanitariam endeavour

2013: As Director of the UK Centre for the History of Nursing and Midwifery I was part of a consultation team for the £20 million redevelopment of the History of Medicine exhibition at the Science Museum, London.

2013: Expert witness for The Report of the Investigation into Matters Relating to Savile at Leeds

Previous appointments of national and international organisation that promote the history of nursing:

• 2017-2021 Publications' Chair: American Association for the History of Nursing (AAHN)
• 2011-2016 Deputy Director: UK Centre for the History of Nursing (UKCHN)
• 200-2008 Committee member: Royal College of Nursing, History of Nursing Society